How to utilize a Shadower at Horntail

Hi,

Shadowers hit the following Bodyparts of Horntail when standing on the right platform, shown in the video:

-Head B
-Head C
-Horntail Wings
-Right Arm of Horntail

-Head B is hit 100% of the time as it is always within attack range
-Head C is hit 100% of the time as it is always within attack range
-Horntail wings are hit 100% of the time
-Right Arm is hit 80-90% of the time, only when he lowers his hand it's not hit

Within 30 seconds a Shadower casts 16-17 Boomerang Steps
Within 30 seconds a Shadower casts 16-17 Boomerang Steps & Band of Thieves in a combo

So using Boomerang Step & BoT is usually better unless you want to hit only in between movement ( which is also shown in the video, right after i use the left / right arm to jump on a platform using Assaulter and then not only walk back to the upper platform but attack in between). If i was to cast Boomerang step & BoT combo there then BoT would probably not be within attack range but only immobilizing me, so at these times i use only Boomerang Step.

Currently my Shadower is at 8.8k clean range with MW20
With an Onyx Apple & Echo that's about 14k range
Average range is 10.6k
Oh and for people wondering why i don't meso explode, that's because it is extremely inefficient.
Once a Shadower hits about 8k range with just Maple Warrior, Meso Explosion becomes entirely obsolete.

Spoiler: Click me if you like math

Boomerang Step 30 has a cast time of 0.69s
However in my 30seconds of testing intervals i always cast about 16-17 Boomerang Step & BoT combos each time
If that was the cast then the cast time would be only 0.56s ~ (did i make a mistake here or uh?)
So the DPS would be even higher then the below shown numbers, however, no clue.
If it's really more like 0.545s average for 1 attack combo then the numbers below are wrong and would be even higher since one attacks more often in a certain time frame.

SE30 adds 15% critical chance and 40% critical damage
Dmg Formula for Boomerang Step 30 with SE30:
((600%*0.85*DMG_RANGE_NO_CRIT+740%*0.15*DMG_RANGE_W_CRIT)*(2*Number of Targets being hit)) / time needed to cast )
Dmg Formula for Band of Thieves:
(2.5*DMG_RANGE_NO_CRIT*0.85+2.5*1.23*DMG_RANGE_CRIT*0.15)*Number of Targets being Hit/ time needed to cast

Disclaimer: i have no clue how SE works with Band of Thieves so i assumed the same factor which is used for Boomerang Step ( 23.3% bonus dmg )
I guess i will edit this once Tim finds time to reply to my pm

So if i were to say i hit 4 Targets with an average range 10.6k with Boomerang Step&BoT (BoT only hits Right arm, Wings & sometimes Head C when he lowers, so i just assumed i only hit 2 targets there regularly) in a combo that would be:

((6*0.85*10600+7.4*0.15*10600)*(2*4))/0.69s+(2.5*10600*0.85+2.5*1.23*10600*0.15)*2/0.69s
= 842,661 average damage / second
= 1,112,949 maximum damage / second

= 842,661 average damage / second
= 1,112,949 maximum damage / second

These numbers are ofcourse under absolute perfect circumstances, where neither the right hand doesn't lower, no weapon cancels on the head, no re-cast times and no repositioning due to getting hit & falling down , seduce, etc.

Still even if only 33% of the average damage arrived on Horntail's Body Parts due to death ( by that i mean that Body parts die and thus one hits less targets = having far less damage / time ), that would be 278,078 average damage / second

So in a regular 50 Minute Horntail Main Body run that would be a total of 834.2m average total damage
Horntail has about 2.7b HP combined i think, so 834.2m is approximately 30.8% of Horntail's total HP.

One thing worth mentioning is that Shadowers with meso guard have basically 60k HP and 40% proc chance on Shadow Shifter, compared to the 30% proc Chance of Shadow Shifter of Nightlords.
Since i hit 30k HP at about lvl 17x i haven't died in a single HT run, even with Bishops DC'ing or dying. Sometimes even had to go afk for a couple of minutes due to real life stuff.

Currently im still trying to improve the top i have and then finish the 130wa 3 slot Dagger im wearing, what im trying to say is:
It's quite possible to reach 11k dmg range with just mw20 as a Shadower with solid gear, going towards 12k or even beyond is the real difficulty.

Playing a Shadower at Horntail is like playing Super Mario.
It's extremely difficult to hit the edges of the platforms, because if you go 1 pixel too far you just fall down, if you don't go far enough, you don't hit the bodyparts. For that i'll maybe make a video sometime when the internet upgrade went through & uploading big files won't be such a torture.






@Al3x

 

Can you compare the damage of this combo to using an Ass + BS combo? Obviously Ass is single target and takes longer to cast so those are the factors to consider.

But for the sake of pure DPS, which combo dishes out more?

 

I did that already 3 months ago.

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/dps-assassinate-vs-assassinate-boomerang-step-combo.136089/

 

@x3heybee

 

I made a small video on how to exactly position at Horntail.
This was a bit unexpected so i didn't really think of an order to show the different aspects of when to attack on which platform, for example when the right arm has it's warning ready, you want to go to the top left side and start attacking head A / B together with the rest of your squad if it was a 3 NL 1 SE 1 Bishop 1 "Shadower" Squad. I even used boomerang only most of the times because i swapped the Boomerang Step and Boomerang Step/Band of Thieves Combo keys on the keyboard.
Maybe someone finds this useful

 

so let me get this right, two targets or more Boomerangstep +BandOfThieves is a better combo than Assassinate +Boomerangstep for DPS? Also, when head A and B is up, is it better to use Boomerangestep + BandOfThieves combo than Assassinate +Boomerangstep because you cannot hit 100% of the time with Assassinate? How about when wings and Head C are down, you would just Boomerangstep + BandOfthieves Head B + right arm?

 

Whenever you can hit 2 or more targets, even with only boomerang step, if for example Band of Thieves just doesn't have enough range to hit, you use Bstep or Bstep&BoT Combo.

That is the general rule of thumb.
Now it really depends on what kind of squad you have at Horntail.

Usually you use Bstep & BoT continuesly as a Shadower until your other, usually single target based, party members arrive on Head C. They killed Head A.
Now they start to attack Head C and if Head C weapon cancels, they attack head B.
However when both heads have their weapon cancel active they usually jump down and attack the right arm together with you, triggering the 1st and only warning of the right arm. Any further attacking would cause mass seduce for one's HT squad.
So what do you do once the right arm has it's warning?
You have 2 options now -

Option #1: You go on the top right platform and use Bstep & BoT Combo, hit Head B and Head C. Whenever Head B weapon cancels you use Assa+Bstep combo and whenever Head C weapon cancels you still use Bstep&BoT since you cannot reach Head B from the right side of Horntail with Assassinate.

Option #2: You also go up and use Assassinate & Bstep Combo on Head C, and whenever Head C weapon cancels you use Bstep & BoT to hit Head B, since again, you can't reach Head B with Assa&Bstep.

Now the thing is, because your party members actually hit Head C most of the time and want it dead, since it is the main target, i use Assassinate & Bstep on Head C whenever possible.

Why do i do that?

When Head C dies the squad doesn't stay on the right side, because if only Head B is alive and it weapon cancels they'd have to essentially wait it out. Remember the arm has the 1st warning.
So even if you had more DPS as a Shadower using Bstep & BoT on Head B & C together, you sacrifice a bit of DPS so you and your party can go to the left side and actually attack the left arm whenever Head B weapon cancels, instead of waiting on the right side of Horntail for the w.cancel to end. ( Af this point im talking when R1 is active, Head A&C are dead )

It's a bit difficult to say in the beginning of a Main Body run aswell.

In the 2nd Video i pretty much found out i was able to hit the legs, wings, the left arm AND Head A whenever it's lowered with Bstep&BoT, however, since your party (again range based) would go to Head A & B once the legs and tail are dead you'd rather help them out killing those faster for 2 reasons:

1# the dmg you do in those 3-5 minutes of leg & tail killing onto the wings , left Hand and sometimes Head A, will be healed for the most part anyways since you'd go to the right side of HT due to your insane DPS there, so (2# basically) why not help out your squad on the legs & tail instead of just "scratching" the left arm & wings.

If the wings are dead and the squad is still on Head A i'd continue to Bstep & Bot on: B, C, right arm

If the wings are dead and the squad is on Head C i'd go up and use Assassinate & Bstep on Head C, so when both w. cancels on B and C are active that the party can jump on the middle right platforms and hit the right arm instead of waiting for the w. cancels to end.

One thing worth mentioning is that even if both arms have their respective dangerous seduce warnings, you can still use Assaulter to get back onto the platforms as they heal more over time compared to Assaulters low dmg. Also you use it only when you fall down, so it's not dangerous to do so.

It took me a couple of HT runs to figure that out.

Hope that helped

 

That's very informative! but I was wondering if you can make a comparison between hero/drk with shad on the right side of horntail or the overall horntail itself?

 

Sure i guess.

I'll assume the usual positioning for Hero's /DrKs / Shadowers at HT.

For Paladins im too lazy, but they're more of a supportive single target DPS Class anyways. I don't mean that in a bad way, they are extremely strong, just different from other classes, especially, if you go with 3 Pallys and a Bucc into HT.

Imagine your 3 Pallys 1 Bucc attack Head A and don't have to ever stop attacking due to weapon cancels, they save time where other classes would climb the ropes, walk and simply not attack. Essentially they make up for their "low DPS". Atleast that's the perception people have, i'd love to join a HT Squad consisting of 3 Pallys, 1 Bucc, 1 Bishop and myself. Fastest HT run ever (without any mules).

By low DPS i mean extremely high. A equally funded Paladin should be able to challenge a DrK or Hero on a single target easily.

However since im too lazy to find the dmg formulas for all these classes and don't want to bother Staff, i'll just use the damage calculator available on the forum and assume equal equipment compared to mine, so i won't have to do the math twice for my Shadower.

My guess here is the following though (Si&SE30 assumed)

Single Target DPS:
1. Corsair
2. NL
3. Buccaneer / Bowmaster ( i don't really know which one is stronger with equal equips, i don't even know the spell names of Buccs)
4. Shadower
5. Paladin
6. DrK
7. Hero

For any class i didn't mention here, it's not like they're not on the list because they don't exist, but because i think those are the classes that attend HT most often.

Multi Target DPS:
1. Shadower
2. DrK
3. Hero
4. Buccaneer / Paladin
5. NL/Corsair

The reasoning behind certain orders is just a feeling.

For some orders it's more of a given, for example:

I was at Zakum with a lvl 194 DrK with 42 att in gears and a 139 Sky Ski (With SE30, No SI).
I was lvl 193, 38 att in gears and 3 slots on my dagger open (130wa 3 slots)
I whited the main body ( we both appled entire run). So single target DPS #1 Shadower.

Now we come to multi target DPS.
(SE30, no SI)
Recent Duo Zakum with a 182 Hero.
38 att in gears, 146 ST.
We started both on bottom arms, still whited 4/4 arms with Bstep & BoT
And the main body with assa&bstep combo.
(Apple entire run)

Usually when i go into Public Zakum runs i white 5/6 arms out of 8 Zakum arms. Even with strong dudes being in the party

I'll reply soon with some numbers

 

I just used the DPS calculator available on the forum for the Hero & DrK calculation, for Shadower i used my own formula as BoT isn't available in the dmg calculator, especially not selecting that Bstep hits 4/3/2 targets and BoT hits 1-5 Targets.

The equipment is extremely similiar to mine, for example my dagger is 15 wa off a perfect Kanzir, so the Sky Ski is also 15 wa off perfect Ski's, same goes for the ST used, 146-14 = 131 wa ST.
Assuming lvl 194 Characters here.

Hero DPS with MW20, Echo, Onyx Apple, SE30 & SI using Brandish with a 131 wa Stonetooth and rest extremely similiar gear as mine:

3 Targets: 605,517 DPS
2 Targets: 403,678 DPS
1 Target: 201,839 DPS

Total damage on 3 targets in a 50 minute run:
1,816,551,000
If 33% arrive on Horntail that's 599,461,830 ( 599.461m )

DrK DPS with MW20, Echo, Onyx Apple, SE30 & SI using Crusher with a 124 wa Sky Ski (Same gear as the Hero, except all into Str since they need no dex) and rest extremely similiar gear as mine:

3 Targets: 618,416 DPS
2 Targets: 412,277 DPS
1 Target: 206,139 DPS

Total damage on 3 targets in a 50 minute run:
1,855,248,000
If 33% arrive on Horntail that's 612,231,840 ( 612.231m )

Shadower DPS MW20, Echo, Onyx Apple, SE30.
Note: Shadowers don't need Speed Infusion since they have the maximum attack speed with a dagger equipped & dagger booster active
For anything above 1 Target the Shadower will be using Bstep & BoT.
BoT only hits 2 targets 100% of the time ( arm & wings ) the bonus dmg that comes from occassionally hitting Head C is not added.
For 1 Target Assa & Bstep Combo

4 Targets: 842,661 DPS
3 Targets: 651,861 DPS
2 Targets: 461,061 DPS
1 Target: 246,508 DPS

Total damage on 4 targets in a 50 minute run:
2,527,984,782
If 33% arrive on Horntail that's 834,2m

Total damage on 3 targets in a 50 minute run:
1,955,584,782
If 33% arrive on Horntail that's 645,342,978 ( 645.342m )

Shadowers hit 3/4 targets most of the time anyways, so they should outdps both Hero & DrK by far. Even if they don't white Body parts, overall they deal far more dmg in a full HT run.

For example, when C weapon cancels Shads still hit 3 targets, so it's not only their raw damage, but the fact that they hit 4 targets.

So for the majority of the run Shadowers are far stronger, and as soon as 3 Targets or less are available they have a small edge in terms of DPS.

The single target DPS outcome would explain why i whited a 1 lvl above me DrK with perfect Sky Ski's and 4wa more in attack equipment while i am 15wa off a perfect D. Kanzir.

 

wait can you actually play shadower without using meso explosion? that would make me hella motivated to play again

 

Maybe this is interesting for you.

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/new-main-shadower-or-buccaneer.135740/

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/shadower-solo-papulatus-boss-video.137754/

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/shadower-solo-shaolin-boss-video.137680/

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/lvl-193-shadower-solo-anego.140232/

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/shadower-solo-bigfoot-boss-video.137757/

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/dps...nate-boomerang-step-combo.136089/#post-790778

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/how...er-without-meso-explosion.138802/#post-821351

Now regarding this thread i found out on how to do Bigfoot efficiently. I am pretty sure funded Shadowers can kill a Bigfoot within 45seconds-2 minutes using Heartstoppers without meso explosion.

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/shadower-mon-or-htp-general-damage-question.136301/

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/the-six-man-party-syndrome.138678/#post-816882

I'd recommend reading through all of it, if you have any interest in Shadowers.

Oh yeah and here's a video on how to position at Zakum as a Shadower:

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/how-to-position-at-zakum-as-a-shadower.141514/


https://royals.ms/forum/threads/shadower-solo-shaolin-no-meso-explosion.144872/

To answer your original question:

Shadowers don't need to ME once they hit lvl 120

More importantly, once they hit about 6-7k range it becomes very cost inefficient and once they hit about 8k range (with just MW) it becomes entirely obsolete since it's weaker than just regularly attacking.

 

I tried papalus without using meso explosion for the firs time yesterday and it took soo much longer but it's to be expected with my only 4k range

 

Might be interesting to know for Bishops and future 30k HP Shadower:

Whenever i went on Horntail runs and said that the bishop can simply ignore me and just make sure to keep up their magic guard, they responded "and what about 1/1?"
So basically the HP/MP drain to 1/1 from Zakum and Horntail doesn't put a 30k HP Shadower to 1/1 HP but to 15,001 HP / 0 MP.
Meso guard halves the 1/1 dmg aswell.
So after the Tail from Horntail is dead, which is the scariest part ( since he hits like 46k dmg buffed max ) and one gets 1/1'd, a Shadower would still sit on 15,001 HP, being 30,002 HP with meso guard.
With the high avoid & 40% Shadow Shifter it's really difficult to die, in fact in my , i don't know exactly, but 100 ~ HT Runs were i was always the seduce "mule" i haven't died a single time, even when bishops dc'd or died.

 

I just want to say that watching all of your Shadower videos is sooooooo satisfying So much fun as a Shadower

 

amazing , well done my friend , very cool tips
ty

 

@SoulCafe

Here's the HP wash starting from level 1 using 50 int equipment from lvl 50 on, if you have it earlier you'll even have some extra MP to wash.
It'll cost a total of 494 AP resets multiplied with the current price of AP resets ( currently 15m ).
you'll end up with 11500 HP by lvl 145 ( + the 500 HP Questline ) = 12k HP by lvl 145 which will enable you to do all major bosses such as Shaolin / Toad etc., being able to tank Horntail heads which deal about 23k-23.5k dmg ( you have 24k "HP" with meso guard ) and so on..
At level 200 you'll have about 13-14k HP depending on your equipment and the amount of additional HP washes you'll gain by using int equipment prior to level 50 and not being able to reset your base int immediately by level 135. So you can go to Bodyguard A/B and the Boss too.



If you want to tweak the numbers, here's the link to Shiyui's HP Wash Calculator.
However i am pretty sure the cost won't lower anymore.

Edit:
-Lvl 1 to whatever level you need to hit 25 base dex
-The remaining points all go into int
You skill int until you hit 170 base int (about lvl 37)
-From lvl 37 on you put all into Luk until lvl 126
-Lvl 127-lvl 135 you put all of your fresh AP into MP
-From lvl 136 you can reset all of your Int back to 4 Base int and put it into Str/Dex so you can wear your Lvl 100/110 Dagger and the Dragon Khanjar Shield.
-Lvl 136-200 all into Luk

 

Not a shadower, but i just wanted to say, damn, well done @FuminoAya for making this highly detailed and interesting insight to the endgame combact of shads!
Your threads almost makes me forget ME is a core skill of shad, and get actually interested in starting one
Even if i won't start a shad, im sure you already inspired many to give shads a shot, and thats really awesome in my book

 

Thank you for the praise. though i didn't do anything but to compile the bits and pieces that were out there already, just not as written text.
Whenever people ask me in the FM whether they have to use meso explosion i tell them they can use ME from lvl 70 onwards to grind efficiently and stop at lvl 120 entirely as it's just not neccessary to use it anymore.
Im glad to see so many Shadowers around and even some of them tell me it's due to the in-depth view i provided on some of my threads on the class.

I think i never said that before but @xBabyCara was my initial inspiration to start a Shadower.
Back then i was helping her and her husband out by HSing them on a Duo Zakum run. Seeing her play the class really made me reconsider if playing a NL was the right thing for me.

Anyways, thank you again and i hope you find time to try out the class beyond using meso explosion.

 

Oh boy, of course nobody ever looks at the numbers. I'm sorry I didn't look at them either until now.

You made the mistake of dividing both bstep and BoT parts by 0.69. Together, they take 1.1 seconds. So, you should have added both their damages together and divide by 1.1. By doing it your way, you are treating it as if the entire combo, bstep and BoT, completes in 0.69s.

As for BoT, the critical damage part should be (2.5+1.4) * AVERAGE_RANGE * 0.15.

The damage calculation should have been:
((6*0.85*10600+7.4*0.15*10600)*(2*4))/1.1s+(2.5*10600*0.85+3.9*10600*0.15) * 2/1.1s
which gives,
530, 964 dps